Human
by DeceptiveSoftness
Summary: The Truth can be a bitter pill to swallow and some doors are best left unopened. Unfortunately for Harry he has little to no say in the matter. Ah well, at least there is no immortal megalomaniac hellbent on the destroying the world. Oh, wait...
1. One

"_I'll Buy My Way To Talk To God So He Can Live With What I'm Not."_

**Don't Stop – InnerPartySystem.**

The air was thick and syrupy and it clung to the back of his throat and coated his tongue with every breath. It felt like he was breathing underwater and his lungs ached from the strain of pulling in the near tangible air and his eyes stung from the lack of proper oxygen.

His mind was a disorganized mess, much like a toy box that had been roughly shaken with its contents strewn wildly around. He could barely think and his head felt as thick as the honey sweet air that he was drowning in. Who was he? Where was he and what was he doing here? What was he supposed to be doing? Was he supposed to be doing anything? Why would it matter? 

The questions buzzed like angry hornets within the confused confines of his brain but the answers evaded his muddled grasp. He wasn't even entirely sure that he was a 'he'. What was a 'he'? Was it important? Gender. The thought swam to the surface of his mind. 'He' was a gender. Male, him, his, he. He was male.

He felt a thrill of satisfaction as that realization prompted several others. He was male and he had a name and an age. He was Harry and he was eighteen years old. Harry grinned fiercely at the knowledge and then opened his eyes and looked out at the pure, white expanse surrounding him.

Sight was a novelty, he hadn't even realized that he _had_ eyes before he'd opened them. He had his mothers eyes and that was very important. He couldn't believe he'd forgotten them because with the new revelation of sight came the memories of his mother and, by extension, his father.

Hair. He had his father hair and suddenly his eyes were veiled behind a messy, black fringe that he was certain had not been there moments before. The fringe hid his scar. The scar he'd gotten when Voldemort had tried to kill him as a baby. Voldemort. The Dark Lord whom he'd defeated the year before at Hogwarts. Hogwarts. The closest place he had to a home.

Slowly, bit by bit, Harry began to piece himself together. One memory led to another and a after a time he was whole again. He'd remembered his limbs, his face, his clothes, his mind. He remembered his friends and family and co-workers. He remembered his life and the incredible events that had happened in it. More importantly he remembered why he was here. 

The emerald eyed boy idly thought that it would be nice to be standing upright rather than lying down. No sooner than the thought crossed his mind then he suddenly found himself standing on his own two feet. It was nice, he mused, to be standing again. He liked standing, he liked it a lot. He also liked sitting too but there were no chairs-

He blinked in mute surprise and then sat gratefully down on the plush armchair that appeared out of no-where. He could certainly get used to this sort of thing. The last thing he'd been able to dredge up hadn't been nearly as pleasant as the endless monotony of this place. He vividly remembered being forced to kneel next to a large, ornately drawn circle on the ground. Around twenty or so terrified muggles were huddled in the center and eight, black cloaked wizards stood outside the circle with anticipatory looks on their faces.

It had been around three hours since he'd been captured by the black clad wizards and during that time all he'd managed to understand was that they were completely bat-shit insane. They were babbling something about Nicholas Flamel and alchemy and a philosophers stone and if Harry was honest most of it had gone _way_ over his head.

Okay, _sure,_ he, Ron and Hermione had researched the stone in their first year but that had been _ages_ ago he'd been through a lot of life altering crap since then. He vaguely recalled the lead to gold and eternal life aspects of the stone but he'd never found out how you'd go about making one. In the end it hadn't mattered because Dumbledore had destroyed the stone at the end of first year but it seemed that these crazies were trying to create another one.

Harry had begun to get a very, very bad feeling about the entire situation before he was roughly grabbed by two of the cloaked wizards. They pulled his arms out taunt and then sliced open his palms and, before Harry could properly vocalize his displeasure at being manhandled, slammed his bleeding hands down onto the rim of the circle design.

The resulting chaos was bewildering. The circle had glowed bright blue and then it had turned an ominous red-purple that rushed around Harry in sly, malicious wisps. The wizards were all looking around in surprise and they began frantically backing away and scrambling for the doors. The black haired youth had no idea what was happening but he found that he couldn't take his hands away from the circle. It was like they were stuck with a permanent sticking charm or something and they refused to budge from their position, directly over a particularly intricate, swirly thing that looked a little bit like a snail.

Harry wrinkled his nose in distaste when one of the purple tendrils drifted across his face. It felt... wrong. It felt fundamentally wrong and it made his skin crawl with goosebumps. Harry renewed his efforts to pull himself free but it was in vain as suddenly what seemed to be a giant grey eyed blinked open beneath the captured muggles. 

The people began to scream and writhe as black tentacles rose sinuously from the circle and wrapped around the muggles. Harry watched in mute horror as the screaming men, women and children were dragged down into the yawning abyss. He was so caught up in their plight that he didn't notice the black hands reaching out for him before they wound their way around his limbs and dragged him into the center of the circle. His hands were

no longer stuck and Harry gripped that they sticking charm _would_ have to wear off just when he needed it the most.

He'd been pulled through the malignant eye and then had experienced the singular worst sensation he'd ever felt before, crutiatus and adeva kevada included. It had been like his very essence was being ripped back at the seams. It felt like he was being dissolved into

nothingness molecule by molecule and there wasn't anything he could do about it.

Then he'd woken up here and he _still_ had no clue what was going on. He guessed that the whole 'philosophers stone' thing had gone tits up but other than that he had no clue what was happening. Where was he and where were the muggles? Were they somewhere in

this nothingness as well or where they somewhere else? 

"**They are not here, foolish alchemist.**" a voice called from behind him. Harry froze and then slowly glanced over his shoulder. It had been his own voice, distorted and stretched to form an eerie quality but his own voice nonetheless. The source of the his-but-not voice was a ghost. It was an odd, human shaped ghost that was barely distinguishable from the blank canvas behind him.

Except, it wasn't so blank anymore. Resting in the space on front of Harry was the largest set of doors he'd ever seen. It was around a foot or two bigger than the one leading into the main hall in Hogwarts and it was covered in a large, sweeping design that had been carved into the grey stone. He was kind of getting used to the whole things-appearing-out-of-nowhere thing so the fact that the Doors where there didn't disturb him. What did make him shiver was the feeling he was getting from the structure.

Mentally he gave the Doors a capital 'D' because magic was rolling off it in waves and it felt _ancient_. The mirror of Erised had nothing on this thing, heck, Hogwarts herself had nothing on the stone monstrosity on front of him and Harry was left feeling incredibly small and humbled.

He frowned minutely and narrowed his eyes at the ghost before pointing a finger at his chest. "Me? I'm not an alchemist. I'm a wizard. See." he said as he plucked his wand out of his back pocket and waved it about. He'd forgotten he'd had it for a while but, as with everything else, it had appeared as soon as he'd needed it. The ghost just laughed and the sound send shivers racing down Harry's spine.

"**Do not lie, alchemist. You will pay the price for daring to walk in Gods domain**." the spirit proclaimed with a grin before it stood from its crouched position on the floor and walked over to stand beside the Doors. Harry was impossibly more confused then when he'd first arrived and he shook his head emphatically at the ghosts words. 

"No, honestly mate, I'm a wizard. Eh, look, _Lumos_." he said a bit desperately and the tip of his wand lit up, the glow was faint against the whiteness of the surrounding area but it was still there. He had no idea what all this talk of alchemy and tolls and God was about but he was willing to bet that it was nothing good. The spirit paused and tilted it's head in a painfully familiar gesture. Harry remembered preforming it himself whenever he was thinking something over.

"**Perhaps you are a wizard also, but that does not excuse your sin."** the ghost said firmly before its grin stretched impossibly wider and it seemed to leer at Harry, which was an amazing feat considering it had no eyes and was roughly the same size as him, meaning that it'd have to stand on it's tip toes to produce the scary looming affect. Harry took a small step backwards and then another and another until he was jogging away from the ghost.

While he was well aware that he looked ridiculous running backwards Harry didn't really want to let the ghost out of his sights, he had a feeling that it would be a bad idea to let the malicious little spirit get the better of him. It just watched him go with the amused tolerance of a parent watching its child do something unbelievable stupid but loving it nonetheless.

"Going somewhere?" an bored voice asked from behind him and Harry swore violently as he turned around and glared daggers at the ghost who was somehow floating upside down with his head still level with Harry's. "Fuck damn it! Don't _do_ that! You nearly gave be a heart attack!" He scowled and pressed a hand to his chest, willing his heart rate to slow down.

"How'd you get from over there-" Harry dramatically flung out his arm and pointed it at the ominous doors. "-to all the way over here you sneaky bastard! Just what in the name or Merlin are you?" He demanded with a petulant air.

He'd seen a lot of freaky shit in his life but this took first place on his list of Hopelessly-Weird-Shit-That-Has-Happened-To-Me-Before-I-Turn-Twenty. Keeping in mind that that was the very same list that included such memorable gems as surviving a killing curse, defeating a dark lord, killing a basilisk, going back in time to save his not-mass-murderer of a god-father from a bunch of soul sucking nazguls and that one time he'd been dead for a few minutes.

Hmm... well perhaps it wasn't _the_ weirdest thing he'd ever had happen to him but it was pretty damn close. Beneath dying but well above the basilisk. Harry knew that there was something seriously wrong with his life when all the important milestones were times when he'd nearly (and, on one occasion, actually had) died.

"**I am what you would call God. I am the world and the universe. I am all and I am one. I am you."** the ghost replied calmly before an ominous creaking noise sounded from behind him and Harry's heart dropped to his feet – metaphorically of course - as he turned back slowly to see the giant doors opening up to reveal an eye much like the one that had appeared in the weird circle. The dark haired youth had a few quick flashbacks to waving black tentacles and screaming muggles before he decided to screw his pride and get the hell out of dodge.

The ghost just laughed eerily as he turned tail and ran in the opposite direction. His feet made no sound as they slammed against the nothingness of the floor but his breath was unnaturally loud in his ears as he sucked in lungful after lungful of the sickly-sweet air. Harry was fast. He was exceptionally fast, he could run like no-bodies business but he got the sinking feeling that it wouldn't be enough because he could _feel_ the dark, wispy, grabbing things just behind his back, their shadow fingers drifting over the material of his robes before they got a good hold and jerked him to a halt.

He would later deny the frightened yelp that forced it's way out of his mouth as he kicked and swore and struggled against the tenacious hands that were swiftly dragging him backwards towards the gaping maw of the open door. Harry flailed wildly before his eyes landed on the ghost and he reached out pleadingly.

"Help me!" he screamed in desperation, his fingers stretching towards the figure as his eyes begged him to take his hand and pull him free. The spirit just grinned, showing off perfect rows of pearly white teeth, as the hands dragged him over the threshold and the doors slammed shut.

**[_]**

**A/N: ** Gah! I _hate_ plot bunnies! I've had three quarters of Razors Wires next chapter waiting patiently for me to finish since the start of the month and, instead of being a good authoress and completing the little ducky, I'm off scribbling new crap!

This was born out of an attempt to create a Harry Potter/FMA crossover that didn't include Ed getting sent to Hogwarts for whatever reason _[usually that pesky un-useful_ _philosophers stone_], falling in love with Mustang _[Not that there's anything wrong with a_ _bit of yaoi. =P], _randomly getting a cat, learning magic and saving the wizarding world on top of his own.

Ed's good darlings but he's not _that_ good.

Bah, anywho, I don't know how I came up with this shizz, I really, really don't. What I _do_ know is that writing the Truth is hilarious fun. The astral sadist is probably completely OCC [_and if he/she/it is then please tell me so I can fix it!]_ but he/she/it's just so much fudging fun to write.

I know the Truth isn't a ghost but Harry isn't an alchemist so he's just calling things as he sees them. He's got an aptitude for the clap, snap, boom stuff but he absolutely will not end up learning it! I fully intend to have Harry alchemy-less and, for the most part, magic-less. I'm evil, I know, but it will make for a more interesting story if he doesn't just sit there and AK every sonovaFather that tries to attack them until the bitch stays dead. Savvy?

_[I'm beginning to think I have a penchant for super long A/Ns, it's a weakness, I'm sorry! TT_TT ]_

If you enjoyed the story then please **review** and let me know what you think. And, heck, if you _didn't_ like the story then it would be awesome if you could still **review** and let me know why you thought it sucked. Criticism is welcome but if your going to pester me with flames then at least make them amusing.

Lastly, thank you very much for reading! I do appreciate the time an effort you awesome guys and gals spent reading over my humble slice of fiction and I hope it was worth it.

- **Softie.**


	2. Two

"If you're not really here then I don't want to be either"

**Black & Gold – Sam Sparro.**

In a small, secluded part of his mind that was completely removed from what was going on Harry mused that he had never screamed so much in his entire life. He couldn't stop screaming, he literally couldn't stop, his mouth just wasn't listening to his brains commands of "Shut the bloody hell up!" and it continued to yell uselessly.

His throat was raw and his lungs burned and he just couldn't stop the loud, agonized sound that forced it's way past his lips and into the endless mass of shapes and colours and sounds and scents and sensations that were quickly driving him mad. His head hurt. A lot. It felt a little bit like his head was a computer that was being forced to download too many things at once and was quickly reaching melting point.

Everything from his own memories to the cure for cancer was being shoved repeatedly into his mind and Harry felt like he was going to explode from the sheer amount of knowledge being force fed into his brain. He couldn't think properly around all the information and he wanted to instinctively clamp his hands around his ears and cry.

Except, he couldn't because he didn't have hands anymore. He didn't have eyes either or ears or a nose or a mouth (he wondered how he was able scream without a mouth but his brain hurt enough as it was so he didn't dwell on it). He didn't have his head or his body. He had nothing but his consciousness and that was swiftly being immersed in the growing tide of knowledge that threatened to overwhelm his sense of self.

At first the dark hands had held him in place while he was dragged backwards through a swirling mass of technicolor memories. (It had hurt then too but not as bad as it did now). Harry had squirmed and struggled and strained against the shadow limbs and he'd managed to extract one of his arms just as a shining white figure appeared in the distance.

Harry'd always believed in the proverbial 'light at the end of the tunnel' lark so he'd determinedly reached out towards the figure with his free hand and yelled out for help. For a moment it had seemed as though he was to be saved from the crushing well of information but as he'd gratefully grasped onto the creatures hand a pain like no other lanced through his entire being.

It was exactly like when he'd first been dragged through the glowing circle and he'd been broken down bit by bit. Except, this time all the broken pieces that made up _him_ were being transferred to the white figure until the creature was grinning sadisticly down at him while wearing his face. After that he'd been tossed aside to drift in the mire of knowledge that lapped menacingly at the sides of his consciousness.

Harry had no idea how long he floated there, intangible and insensible, as he fought fruitlessly to retain his sense of self and not loose himself to the overwhelming tide that surged and frothed just outside his awareness.

After a time the sensations dulled and it became easier and easier to keep himself to himself and not let his mind slip away into the tenacious lull of the unknown. Harry focused on keeping his thoughts together and slowly the tugging stopped and he was left floating alone. 

Now that he was finally allowed some peace Harry decided that it would be a good time to swear and grumble and curse the world as he knew it for dealing him such a shitty hand in life. He speculated that he must have kicked some serious puppies in a past life for this one to be so unbelievably crappy. Every time he thought '_Finally, I'll be able to have a normal life with a white picket fence and a pretty wife and wonderful Gryfindorish kids and live happily ever after' _something came along and tore the pretty picture to unidentifiable shreds.

He'd defeated a Dark Lord for crying out loud (Admittedly with much help from his friends, teachers, magical minions and, on occasion, his enemies) didn't that mean that he was due some good luck? Couldn't he go one fricken year without something bad happening to him? He didn't want to be whiny or anything but, for the record, he'd never asked to be born.

He continued on this line for a while before he eventually grew tired of ranting to empty space and piped down with an irritated sigh. It was kind of peaceful here. He was just one out of a million swirling, twisting entities and it was a wonderfully humbling feeling. He was used to feeling the pressure of the world on his shoulders and the anonymity was comforting in a strange way. It was still as scary as hell though.

He was just a tiny speck of dust in this strange place, he was so small he wasn't even worth counting. All around him was spots and slices of _everything_. Before, when he'd said he saw the cure for Cancer he hadn't been kidding. Various cures and potions zipped round him and, at the opposite end of the spectrum, so did ideas for killing and torture that made Harry wince and cringe away.

Bright colours, so strong and pure that they would have burned his eyes had he had any, brushed past him like ribbons and wonderful, strange ideas drifted through him. It would be all too easy to loose himself in this, already he could feel his mind slipping slyly away and he willed it back with an annoyed grumble.

It was difficult, impossible really, to not be affected by the things around him. Personalities and thoughts that were not his own were pressing on his mind, crawling through what was left of his being and leaving him feeling incredibly molested. He wasn't sure what he was anymore.

Before, back at the White Plane (The nickname sucked but he didn't know what else to call it and the place _had_ been pretty white) he'd remade his body from memory but now he didn't have a body to remake. Harry didn't know what was left of him now. Was it his soul that was stranded in this weird place?

He knew that it was probably not going to work but it was worth a try. The glimmers and outlines of the various things surrounding him was giving the emerald eyed youth an idea. They all had form even though they... didn't exist. It hurt his head to think about but he got the feeling that everything in this twisted dimension was here in a detached sort of way. The things existed outside but they had form inside.

So, theoretically, he should be able to have a form too,. Even if his true body was elsewhere he could still, hypothetically of course, create a new one in here. He could will a body into being just like he willed his mind/soul to stay intact. It would be hard, even now he was having trouble keeping himself together, and it would take great concentration but he knew he could do it.

Harry decided to start of nice an simple an focused on bringing his hand back. Nothing happened. He grumbled a little and decided to go even smaller and then succeeded in bringing the nail from his little finger into being. The tiny pink nail floated eerily right where his smallest finger would be and Harry decided to use it as a starting point.

From that small nail he painstakingly imagined his finger back to life and from that finger he drew out the next one and the next one until he had four fingers and one thumb floating merrily on front of him. The thrill of success was dampened by the almost overpowering wave of weariness that washed over his consciousness.

Harry was exhausted. It took so much more work than he had expected to keep this up. He had to focus intensely on each of the fingers to stop them fading back into nothingness and the mental strain was painful. It seemed that he could only hold the fingers in place for a few seconds before either his concentration slipped and he lost the digits or his awareness slipped and he started to loose himself.

Harry mentally frowned before decided that it _was_ possible to create a body within the Plane but he didn't have the mental stamina to keep it up. He'd simply have to practice and practice until he could keep all his limbs and torso and head in place without loosing his mind.

That was something that would take time but he supposed that the end result would be worth it. Meanwhile there was plenty of stuff to take his mind of things. Things like how he was going to get out of here and back home to where his friends were waiting. It wasn't something he wanted to think about. He didn't want to think about how he was going to miss Ron and Hermione's wedding if he didn't get out of here soon. He didn't want think about how they were taking the news of his disappearance.

Harry knew that if he was the one left behind and they had gone missing he'd be beside himself with worry. His friends were his world and he fretted anxiously over how he was going to manage to get out of this mess. He still didn't know what had happened to him so figuring out how to get out of the sticky mess he was in was proving to be more than a little difficult. The dark wizards had been muttering something about a Philosophers stone and Alchemy and the creepy little ghost had referred to him as an Alchemist so perhaps that had something to do with it.

He was still screwed of course because all he knew about alchemy could be written on the back of a postage stamp. A really, really _small_ postage stamp. In fact the only words that came to mind when someone mentioned Alchemy was Nicholas Flamel, Eternal Life, Gold and Voldemort on account of the snaky bastard trying to steal the stone in his first year.

Perhaps if he wracked his memories for answers he might recall a fragment of a page or a line of a spell that would somehow wish him out of here but it was too dangerous to just let his mind wander in case he never got it back again.

At least for now.

What he really needed was some patience so that he could train himself to keep his mind in check but Harry had never been particularly good at the waiting game. He wasn't exactly in Gryffindor, house of the brash and the brave, for his outstanding ability to wait until the danger had passed and it was safe to act. He'd leave that cowering shit to Malfoy thank you very much.

So basically... he was screwed. Harry groaned and wished he had hands to bury his head in.

**[-]**

"Yes!" Harry exclaimed as he ogled his two arms in unrestrained glee. He'd had them floating for just over two hours now and he could still barely feel the mental strain. They were just arms but it was still wonderful to keep them both afloat without feeling his mind slip away into nothing. It was proof that he _could_ do this. That it _wasn't_ impossible.

Now to try his legs... 

**[-]**

Harry groaned as he let his body disappear slowly, starting with his torso and finishing with his toes. He still hadn't managed to recreate his head, mainly because he couldn't quite remember what his face looked like. It was ridiculous (and a little bit scary) to know that he couldn't recall the same shape or structure of his own face anymore.

He can't have been in this place _that_ long but his memory was turning foggy and he'd already had to rely on the whizzing pictures and twisting images of other people that drifted past to reconstruct his legs and torso.

His face was precious. It sounded silly. The rest of him could be made up of mismatched parts for all he cared but his face was different. It was his father face and his mothers eyes. In a way it was one of his last remaining links to them. How was he supposed remember the exact shade and shape of his mothers eyes? Or the angles and planes that made up his fathers face? How could he recall the effortless way his hair would simply stick up in a casual I-Just-Got-Out-Of-Bed disarray? 

It was useless and Harry wanted to sob with the unfairness of it all. After everything he'd done and everything he'd been through he still couldn't protect the one thing that was purely his. Even his identity had been taken from him.

What more did he have to give? 

**[-]**

He stared warily into the makeshift mirror and a face stared back at him. It wasn't _his_ face but it was close enough. His eyes were perhaps a shade too bright and his hair a shade to dark. His chin was too pointy and his cheekbones too sharp but it was the closest he'd managed to get to his original face in a very, _very_ long time so Harry was content with it for now.

For a body created from hazy memories and flashing images Harry felt that it had turned out pretty well. It was, again, not like his original but it was so similar that he ignore the little inconsistencies. Trivial things like the shape of his hands, the muscle on his arms and the length of his legs (and _other_ appendages) were carefully overlooked in favour of the bigger picture.

Harry shuddered lightly at the use of the two words that he had grown to hate during his youth. The 'Bigger Picture' and the 'Greater Good' were forever linked in his mind as two of the scariest phrases in the entire world. It basically meant sacrificing everything you held dear in order to save a sheep majority that hated your guts.

He preened in front of the conjured mirror. (It wasn't _really_ conjured but Harry had to come up with some sort of name for what he was able to do. What _else_ was he supposed to call it? The spontaneous power of imagination? La-_ame_.) He hadn't quite gotten around to bringing up clothes yet but the thought of stitches and creases in fabric _on top_ of the already gut wrenchingly complex body he'd just finished creating was enough to make him want to cry.

Still, he mused with a grin as he turned around and glanced into the mirror over his shoulder. He looked _good_.

**[-]**

**A/N:** Thanks for reading! =3

Whew! This was originally a lot longer but I decided to cut what I had written in half in the interests of getting a chapter out quicker and not killing you all with the sheer length of it. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and I know it probably wasn't what a lot of your were expecting.

I decided on Harry's toll after hearing Father from FMA:B explain why he thought everyone had their individual tolls. Alphonse had his body taken away because he wanted to feel the warmth of his mothers embrace, the ability to stand on his own two feet was taken from Edward, [!**possible spoilers ahead!] **Izumi lost the ability to have children after trying to revive her baby and Mustang, who had a great vision for the future, had his sight taken away.

In line with that I decided that since Harry's friends mean everything in the world to him and the fact that all he ever wanted was a normal life I was going to have his toll as his body and his home world so that he would never see his friends again. It's a bit cruel but Harry will be kind of disembodied for pretty much all of this fic but he wont be completely helpless.

If you enjoyed it then please **review** and let me know how you felt. And, heck, if you _didn't_ enjoy it then still **review** and let me know why you thought it sucked. Criticism is always welcome though if your going to flame then at least make it witty!

I will reply to every review so don't think they go unappreciated!

-Softie.


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